IT department summons Congress leader Ahmed Patel in Rs 550 crore party donation case
By Newsmeter Network Published on 6 March 2020 7:22 AM GMT
Vijayawada: The Income Tax Department has summoned Congress Party treasurer Ahmed Patel in the case related to alleged undeclared party donation and election expenses of over Rs 550 crore.
The summons to Ahmed Patel followed the searches by the IT Department in 52 places including several parts of Madhya Pradesh in April 2019 and Hyderabad, Vijayawada and few other locations in October 2019 and February 2020. The IT Department had searched the houses of six employees of the Congress Party.
Ahmed Patel confirmed that he has received the summons from the IT department. He claimed that such contributions are received by almost all the political parties in the country and he will respond to the summons after the upcoming Parliament session.
During the raids in Hyderabad, the IT Department had unearthed over Rs170 crore.
A senior officer of the IT Department said that they have sent summons to Ahmed Patel under Section 131 of the Income Tax Act for alleged violations of Section 13A which deals with exemptions for political parties with conditions.
IT Department has collected evidence as to how Madhya Pradesh government departments gave cash donations to the Congress party in the 2019 general election and shipped Rs 20 crore cash allegedly from the residence of Congress leader Kamal Nath to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters.
The IT Department alleged it had detected siphoning of more than Rs2, 000 crore during the raids in February 2020 and a part of this had been paid to the Congress party.
